Recent years have seen many changes in international and national responses to, and legislation on, trafficking in persons. In this paper Lara Fergus reviews some of the theoretical approaches to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, as well as examining the current legislative, policy and service responses. The paper aims to provide an overview...

In response to broad enquiry from sexual assault services around Australia, in this paper Liz Olle looks at the range of formal health sector protocols that currently exist to guide service responses to victim/survivors of sexual assault, throughout Australia's different states and territories. The specific protocols reviewed here tend to be those that guide interaction...

Lara Fergus considers the human rights approach to stopping violence against women in the context of Amnesty International's recently launched Stop Violence Against Women campaign. She examines how such conceptual changes to human rights may mark the beginning of a new era of activism of greatly increased relevance to women, and looks at what the...

Family violence and sexual assault are reported to be at crisis levels in many Indigenous communities. In response to calls from Indigenous people for change, a number of state and territory governments have established Task Forces, drafted policy documents, and held inquiries into the nature and extent of the violence. In this Briefing Paper Monique...

There are many problems in responding to sexual assault that are unique to rural communities and impact upon rural women, such as isolation, conservatism and denial of sexual assault. Alexandra Neame and Melanie Heenan review the literature and current issues relating to sexual assault and service provision in rural communities, and draw on the experiences...